Hi there. Brand new to this forum and had a good nose and some really useful stuff here.

On to my problem

Ive been working away this week and on Wednesday of this week my wife decided to book a holiday with our local agents. It is a thomson holiday to spain half board in a 4 star hotel for me, my wife and two kids age 6 and 2 for one week.

She informed about the booking last night when i got home and told me the price. To say I was fuming is an understatment. I hit the roof!!.

The holiday was £3000 (or very near) I had a very quick look on the internet and found the same deal in the same hotel for around £1000 with the first site that i found

To be honest I feel £3000 is waaaaay to much for a holiday to spain and half board. So I said we would try and get our money back! telling them i could not go on those dates and the price was to high compared to the price on the website.

After talking to the agent we have been told they would charge 50% to cancel so near on £1500. I looked on the thomson website and done the flight and hotel separate and it came to a total of £1300!. I feel sick that we have spent so much on this holiday and my wife is in absolute pieces over this.

Ive called thomson and spoken to someone about this and they have said we could change the dates but thats it. If we picked a cheaper holiday then we would not get any money back we could not get vouchers or a credit note or anything else for that matter.

We feel so disappointed that we are loosing £1500 and have nothing to show for it. I do not understand how they can warrant charging £1500 for fee's(?) when we only booked 2 days ago.

I would really appreciate any ones input and help on this. At the moment I think I have decided to loose the £1500 rather than spend £3000 plus spending money on a holiday worth £1000

Firstly what are the dates that your wife booked your holiday for as they will be charging you 50% to cancel looking at their terms and conditions I guess its because you are travelling in the next 55-36 days 50%.

Oh dear . That's a big difference with the same company for package V hotel/flight

I'm assuming you have less than 6 weeks before travel and you are now on the sliding scale of money you would get back between this point and the point of departure . If you have over 6/8 weeks before departure (normally before full balance is due) you would loose the deposit only .

Unfortunately there is no cooling off period with holiday bookings and unless you can get Thomsons to move on this as a gesture of good will the only other option I see you have is to move that £1500 onto another booking for a later date elsewhere Or Change it for a more expensive holiday where you know you will be getting better value for your money . You could look at changing it to an A/I . Doesnt need to be the same destination.

If they are wanting to charge you a 50% cancellation fee then I am assuming that this holiday is for sometime during this season's school holidays? If this is the case then it doesn't make any difference whether you booked it 2 years ago, 2 months ago ot 2 days ago - they are charging this because you want to cancel so close to your departure and has very little relationship to the costs they have incurred so far.

This is probably not what you are wanting to hear but I don't really see what you can do about getting a refund unless they have some sort of price matching guarantee in place that you could try and invoke. Whether the cost is justified or not is beside the point - your wife is a responsible adult who entered into a contract with them, will have signed to say that she agreed to abide by the Terms and Conditions and presumably paid a deposit to secure the holiday. As she booked this over the counter I would doubt that there is any sort of cooling off period that allows you to change your mind either.

If it was me, rather than losing £1,500 by cancelling and still having to pay out for a holiday on top of that I would try and concentrate on finding a decent holiday that was worth £3,000 and then try and get them to transfer your booking for the relatively small admin fee that they usually charge. Even in the school holidays, you stand a good chance this year of being able to get an AI deal outside of Europe for that sort of money including the Caribbean - and possibly for 14 days at that - and you would need little additional spending money. Your wife must have thought that £3,000 was affordable and within your budget so why not direct your efforts at trying to get value for money rather than getting embroiled in trying to get a refund which I think is a battle you'll lose?

If it was me, rather than losing £1,500 by cancelling and still having to pay out for a holiday on top of that I would try and concentrate on finding a decent holiday that was worth £3,000 and then try and get them to transfer your booking for the relatively small admin fee that they usually charge. Even in the school holidays, you stand a good chance this year of being able to get an AI deal outside of Europe for that sort of money including the Caribbean - and possibly for 14 days at that - and you would need little additional spending money. Your wife must have thought that £3,000 was affordable and within your budget so why not direct your efforts at trying to get value for money rather than getting embroiled in trying to get a refund which I think is a battle you'll lose?

I agree with SMa here and I would 2nd Sol rio Luna &Mares in cuba . Off there ourselves in 4 weeks .

Another thought if you decide to try and put your £1500 towards something else . first choice are also part of Thomsons now .check if they Would allow you to pick from what they have on offer too .

Feeling ripped off is horrible at the best of times and I totally agree that the price for what you have appears to be rather ridiculous.

I agree with the others and would pay the admin fee and move your booking to something far more worthy of the 3K price tag. I am getting an AI two weeks peak season with daytime flights for that price and I don't blame you for being gutted.

First is your wife obviously decided that you needed/deserved a holiday. I agree the price makes your eyes water a little but don't put all the blame on her. Sometimes we lose sight of how much pressure work puts on our lives and it takes someone else to bring it to our attention. Your wife obviously thought you needed a break.

We all start out on the holiday booking trail without being very good at looking for bargains. Once we discover sites like HT then we quickly become experts and don't fall for the tricks played on us by the TOs and agents again.

Second you will get lots of good sensible advice here and the suggestions made so far have merit. Yes booking the hotel direct can save money but add on the flights and transfers and the price gap may not be quite as wide as it looks. If you are to change then perhaps looking at two weeks rather than one may bring things more into line. Certainly if you cancel and lose £1,500 and then book another holiday you are still out of pocket. Talk with the agent and see what you can negotiate first. You never know it might just work out.

Either way don't brood about it you are going to have a holiday some way or another. Enjoy it.

I agree with Sam. I have priced up packages and then booking hotel and flight separately with Thomson many times but I have never found a price differential as much as that.
You can also ask Thomsons if you can transfer your payment to a holiday next year and then you could rebook something cheaper for this year?
I did that myself last year. I transferred my deposit from a holiday for February 2010 to a holiday in March 2011 and then rebooked something off the internet.

Ok it seems somewhere some problems have occured, but, am I right in thinking you now have a £3000 holiday booked? You'd lose £1500 if you cancelled? You can rebook the same holiday yourself for £1000?
If so then why not ask Thomson if they'll let you change to a different holiday and then book it, there may be a small fee. BUT then see if they'll let you use any remainder of the original money to book another holiday for summer 2011.
You may have to add a little towards next years but you'll have about 10 months to pay it off!

Don't forget though that doing it DIY you usually have to add on transfers/ luggage/ etc which can add up a bit!

Another thing to try is to see if it's cheaper for the holiday as 4 adults! If it is tell Thomson that they should have done it this way instead!

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